it? that incredible video just the tiniest snapshot of the damage and devastation caused by the super storm known as sandy. welcome to 9 news at 7:00. i' derek mcginty. >> the death toll in the united states now at least 40. many of those victims killed by falling trees. more than 8 million people are without power up and down the east coast. experts say sandy could end up costing $20 billion in damage with billions more expected in lost business. metro is running on a limited schedule tonight. full service resumes tomorrow. d.c. area airports are back up and running, but make sure to check with the individual airline before leaving, and the federal government, most local governments and schools say they will open at the regular time tomorrow. think of old town alexandria or georgetown when we talk about the storm surge and the flooding. in fact we have a crew watching high tide in old town right now. >> they are also playing very

close attention to the river up in frederick. that's where our ryan dean is live monitoring the flooding there. ryan? >> reporter: good evening to you. actually a trail that goes down to the river, this trail has been cut off because the river has spilled out of its bank. to give you an idea. those trees down there, the river is supposed to be ten feet passed that. now it has gushed over its bank and it's creeping towards the historic battlefield and mill run by the national park service has water almost touching it. this is the worst it will get, because the river will crest and start receding in about an hour. right now it's at 21 feet, 6 feet above flood stage. i'm told by locals only a few homes are along the river. we received this photo from a homeowner that lives near the park. but for the most part, the home we saw are keeping dry. that park i mentioned is underwater. >> never. we've been traveling around all day looking at the different rivers and seeing how high they

are. i've never seen it this high. >> actually, two men had to be rescued from this river earlier today. we're told they tried to get too close and personal and had to be rescued from a floating device. that is the latest. i'm ryan dean, 9 news. >> thank you, ryan. we see those videos from even up in frederick or up in new york, we realize that this thing was bad, but it had a potential to be a lot worse. >> it had potential to be worse here. probably couldn't have been any worse in new york. >> exactly. >> the problem, too, along with the scope of the storm, how big it was, we mentioned this a couple of times, full moon, too. the tidst and you throw in -- tides and you throw in sandy, you've got problems. the radar, still a little bit of sandy left there, not much, unless you're in the mountains, and plenty left in the mountains. it's going to snow there the next 24 hours. light showers around the immediate metro area.

nothing heavy. notice the circulation. this thing is still circulating over new england, into southern quebec, down across the eastern lakes and down into the carolinas. snow today as far as south as the smokies and tennessee and north carolina. a lot of snow. a tremendous amount of snow from garrett county back to beckly in west virginia. so it's still with us. tonight though just some light showers. snow will county west of the divide. that will be accumulating snow. a little bit of snow mixed in, i think, with some of your showers between cumberland, maybe hagerstown. maybe close to smiths burg up in northern frederick county. the monokasi will crash tonight. moderate flooding. forecast to crest at 21.6. that is a forecast. point of rocks, forecast to crest at 22. that's 8:00 p.m. tomorrow night. moderate flooding there. move a little further south down the river, wisconsin

avenue, cresting at 8.6. we think minor flooding. that will not crest until 2:00 on thursday morning. remember, all the rain that fell has to drape into the potomac basin and the further down the river you are, the later the flooding occurs. we're not looking at any flash flooding, but river flooding still a problem for the next day or so. back to you guys. >> on that very note, topper, the damage in alexandria last night nearly nonexistent. but right now officials are concerned about potentially dangerous flooding as the potomac crests. we're live in old town with more. debra? >> reporter: if you wanted to stand in the potomac, this is really your chance. it's actually meeting king street right here in alexandria. it's actually been rising for quite awhile. ever since we got here around, let's say, 5:30 or so. that's when we ran into this group. [ shouting ]

volunteers showing heart isn't shy. he's one of those vocal volunteers handing out free sandbags this afternoon. some were used at businesses up and down king street. lots of people came out to see. they're curious. they wanted to snap pictures of the flooding. someone took a chance to drive through the rising water. many hoping sandy isn't as mean as isabel was. this whole area resembled a river then. so sandbags, important to have or not? >> i would say they are. i mean, take the chance, put the sandbags up, not lose your property. >> and they're free. >> yes, absolutely free. >> reporter: so you can see the water certainly rising here at this point. it's probably going to get a lot worse when high tide comes later on. we'll have a lot more for you at 11:00 tonight. debra alfarone, 9 news. sandy's torrential rain and

winds caused a lot of damage here in washington and much of the time it had to do with trees that have been uprooted from the oversaturated ground. there was one family out there showing our own todd walker the damage to their home after a century's old tree came crashing through the roof at the height of the storm last night. todd? >> hey, guys, i want to get you the good news first. after nearly 24 hours on scene, power crews finally got the lights back on for this street here at the corner of idaho and wisconsin street. this family, they are so lucky to be alive right now are. this tree came crashing down on the house. take a look at the damage. about 8:00 p.m., the height of the storm, they were hunkering down. there were four people inside, all in separate rooms. jay hecker found the ceiling ladder to the attic wide-open with a branch sticking through. they found several other holes all over the second floor. but she said the sound of that tree coming down is unmistakable. >> and then the smash just

came. it was so sudden, it was so -- i had been through an earthquake, and the severity of the shaking was absolutely frightening. >> reporter: definitely frightening. you can understand why. but again, the good news, they've literally were coming up on 24 hours, these crews being here. the lights came back on in the last five minutes or so. i'm sure a lot of happy people on this street here. live in washington, d.c., i'm todd walker, 9 news. >> thank you, todd. such a simple thing, but when the lights come back on, it's a big deal. in fact, d.c. mayor vince gray says the whole city is on track to be back up and running tomorrow. the biggest impact, according to the mayor, the downed trees we mentioned. 187 of them down all across the city. more than 100 folks had to spendthe night in shelters. now the city is working to get those people back home by tomorrow. only two traffic signals remained out as of this morning. pepco says they hope to have any remaining power outages fixed by tomorrow evening as

well. the mayor says keeping the city closed today was the right thing to do. >> i think it has remarkably facilitated our cleanup operations with trees down in some of the streets, people trying to traverse those streets. i have absolutely no reservations about having had a second day of the city being shut down. >> for the d.c. public schools, several did suffer some minor water damage. that's from leaks or what they're calling water intrusion. crews are getting those classrooms dried out. the district's hoping to have all the public schools back open just in time for class tomorrow. >> make no mistake about it. this was a devastating storm, maybe the worse we have ever experienced. >> tonight, lower manhattan remains paralyzed in the wake of sandy. many businesses still closed. power is out to tens of thousands and the city's subway system is shut down. it could be days before subways are up and running again. the tunnels are flooded. on long island, home video caught the amazing sight when a

giant tree literally uprooted during the height of the storm and the high winds. >> the level of devastation at the jersey shore is unthinkable. >> parts of new jersey also seeing massive amounts of damage from sandy. a huge tidal surge sent waters gushing into new jersey, monoki. waters rose 5 feet leaving 800 people stranded. emergency crews moved quickly to get them out. the storm destroyed portions of the historic boardwalk in atlantic city but the casinos escaped mostly unsthed. then there's this. >> this is bruce johnson. got a couple of things to show you here. you can see the water. it's just everywhere, and i think as much as 3 to 4 feet deep as you get closer to the famous rudder during the summer. that's a beehive of activity. that's the place to be for happy hour. the rehoboth bay spilled over to the road here and every road

heading toward -- >> can see the water moving behind him. that was our bruce johnson on dewey beach. after the break the latest on power restoration efforts in our area. >> plus, how social media is playing a major role in this disaster storm.

>> let's get the latest on power outages across our region. >> investigative russ ptacek knows exactly where to find that information. >> reporter: we're 24 hours into this since this really started heating up. are you ready for a headline? this is the headline i just sent out while you guys were getting the 7:00 news underway here. that is most power now restored. 248,000 people remain without power right now, but at the height of this storm this morning and the early morning

hours, we were at more than a half a million. let's take a look at where some of these people are located. boy, folks in northern virginia, you're having a tough time. there is some good news. one of the points we made when we were talking about this as we were looking into this area trying to identify what the red dot means. the red dot means more than 2400 people without power. we pointed to the x area that was over the red dot. x marks the spot. that spot is no longer red, which means there are fewer outages in that area, but the word is currently 52,000 people in northern virginia remain without power. taking a look right now at the map for bge, 70,000 customers have been restored in randall county, but 32,000 remain without. over all in the network, 127,000 without power, and taking a quick look at pepco. right now pepco reporting only 5,000 people without power.

last, potomac edison, i know you folks are calling us saying you're without power. they have a lot of outages. they've been overwhelmed with snow in addition to the hurricane. they're bringing in additional resources, but right now they don't have an estimate as to when they'll be completed. for the rest of you, we are halfway through, most of you have been restored. >> great news, russ. thank you for that. we know pepco has been working all day long trying to get the juice flowing to those customers in the dark. our reporter has been out with the crews all day as well. she joins us with more from upper marlboro. >> there's any box i plug in at night. i plug right there. everything as you can see is plugged directly into the wall. >> reporter: electricity isn't a luxury for him. he needs it to power his wheelchair and his bed. his battery lasted the past 12 hours with the power down, but it's running low. >> if i can't plug in tonight, i'm going to be in a pickle.

so you know, all joking aside. we need electricity asap. >> reporter: with the power down, he waited for pepco to come fix it. >> i've never been so happy to see white trucks roll in the neighborhood. >> reporter: he greeted the three-man team in his front yard when they showed up, including the cree chief. >> we're -- crew chief. >> we're on 24/7, 365. >> reporter: he's worked at pepco 26 years and appreciate people want their power back on for all different reasons. >> the opening of the nba, think we'll be good by 8:00? >> reporter: his crew worked 16 hour days until power was restored to the entire service area. sandy didn't hit as hard as past storms, he knew it would mean a few long days getting everyone back online. >> i looked out the window, shook my head and had the phone in my hand waiting. >> reporter: as soon as the power is back on in the spans house, it's on to the next one. >> people feel inconvenienced with the power off. getting it back on, it's

helping them out so much. they really do appreciate it. we get a lot of thank u.s. >> godspeed. >> great stuff. caitlin ross reporting. let's look at the powerful role social media has played in this storm. we're joined by kristen berset. >> reporter: we have been keeping you guys updated on social media all throughout which you have been which is great. us in the web department have been using this really cool feature to show you pictures from all up and down the east coast. i'm going to show some of those. >> we've been able to use this cool new tool that allows us to track photos and tweets by longitude and latitude. what we're looking at here is kind of tweets from up and down the east coast. we're going to take a look at photos taken during sandy in three different locations. >> plus great photos starting in our area. this one from washington, d.c. >> yep. this is the washington, d.c. area, as you can see. we're going to take a look at a photo that was taken right over

by truckston circle. >> take a look at that. you can see the sidewalk of it. remember, ground is really wet, so be careful around those trees. >> for sure. next we're going to go up to atlantic city, which obviously as we moved up the coast, the photos were getting more intense. and take a look at all this wood up on the beach. >> we've been showing pictures of the famous boardwalk in atlantic city. you can see all the woodpilings from there. of course, you go up to new york city, and that's where we get all the flooding and all of that worse. >> these next two photos were from lower manhattan. take a look at that. tons of water. one last one, which is down in battery park. unbelievable. tons of signs in the water. >> see the construction site. just massive flooding. really cool feature. simon thanks for showing that to us, pictures from up and down the east coast. we want your pictures. we're putting them up on the website as fast as we're

getting them. you can e-mail them to us. guys, back to you. >> we've gotten great ones. thank you. and listen, why don't you help us help others. why liking our wusa 9 facebook page. we are donating a dollar for every new like we get. outside right now. doesn't look too bad. topper is along in a minute to tell you how bad it's going to be or how good it's going to be over the next few days.

>> let's give you some perspective on sandy. turns out she is the largest hurricane in terms of diameter on record. 945 miles. igor in 2010 was 920 miles. olga in 2001 was 865 miles. let's kind of put this in perspective. we'll move it onshore. if it were located over the tennessee valley it would affect people in des moines down to houston all across the gulf coast, the key west and up to bangor, maine. that is a huge storm. one reason we saw so much damage north of us. okay, the show. here we go. this is a softer side of sandy. this is out in beckly, in snowshoe. they've had 22 inches of snow that. drift was four feet. this is courtesy of christy. i think they're going to see

another ten inches before it's all said and done. live outside, our michael and son weather cam. 43. winds out of the south/southwest at 7. pressure continues to rise as sandy continues to pull away from us. next three days, breezy with a shower. 54 tomorrow. not bad for halloween. mid-50s on thursday. a little more sunshine. and then quite low 50s but a bit cool. next seven days, pretty good. mid-as on saturday. turn your clocks back. we get an extra hour this weekend. upper 60s on sunday. rain showers next monday. we'll be back right after this. stay student. tuned.

>> that's it. we're back tonight at 11:00 with the latest on the cleanup of sandy.

♪ "e.t." hollywood reaches out to the victims of superstorm sandy. >> it's pretty scary out there. >> these times bring people together. >> millions evacuated. dozens dead. the media fighting to cover the storm. >> my goodness, the wind has just been insane! goodness gracious! >> "e.t." is on the ground in manhattan today. >> i'm bringing you the latest from times